THIS BLOG RATES THE S&P 500 BUY/SELL/OR HOLD EACH DAY WITH 2-GOALS FOR LONG TERM INVESTMENTS: (1) PRESERVE CAPITAL (2) BEAT THE S&P 500.
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Friday, September 6, 2013

Jobs…Jobs…Jobs (September 2013)

“Payrolls in the U.S. climbed less than projected in
August after smaller gains the prior two months...The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell as more
people left the labor force…Unemployment dropped to 7.3 percent, the lowest
since December 2008…“Job growth will remain less than desirable until we see
the pace of economic activity pick up,” Russell Price,
a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit, said before the
report…”Full story at…

Futures were up after the report as the FED-Taper-Ghouls
liked the tepid growth.Bad news is good
news if you don’t want the “taper”.

JULY JOBS REVISED DOWN 76,000 TO ONLY 104,000 (Zerohedge)

“…what has shocked the market is the revision to the July
jobs number from 162K to only 104K, resulting in a net drop of
74K jobs, and breaking the average 2013 jobs gain of 200K which previously was
said by the Fed to be the key threshold level for tapering. The question now
is: is this print bad enough to delay the taper?” From Zero
Hedge at…

The market will need to chew on this for a while: Next
month the August numbers could be revised down too, as were June and July.

GALLOP JOBS REPORT – “LITTLE JOB GROWTH” (Global Economic
Advisors)

Excerpts from Gallop Report: “Gallup's unadjusted
unemployment rate for the U.S. workforce was 8.7% in August, up from 7.8% in
July and from 8.1% in August 2012…The increase is partly due to the decline in
the size of the workforce…[The officially reported] decline in unemployment
masks a lack of job growth, and makes the employment situation appear to be
improving when in fact little has changed.” Analysis at…http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

MARKET REPORT
Friday, the S&P finished unchanged at 1655 (rounded) at the close.

(The Index fell about 0.75% in the last hour of trading.Looks like traders didn’t want to be long
over the weekend, but this follows a pattern of selling at the end of the day
so perhaps the traders are trying to tell us the market is not healthy?)

VIX was up 0.5% to 15.85.

MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

The 10-day moving average of stocks
advancing on the NYSE fell to 51% at the close Friday.(A number above 50% for the 10-day average is
generally good news for the market.)Over the past 3-days, the 50-dMA of advancing stocks fell along with the
10-dMA, while the S&P 500 has been basically flat.That is a bit of divergence that suggests the
index may resume its decline next week; however, New-high new low data is not
giving a clear signal.

New-highs outpaced new-lows today leaving
the spread at +67 (it was +53 Thursday), with the 10-day moving average of
change in spread positive, but still trending down. That's a mixed signal from the new-hi/new-low numbers.

The Internals are neutral on the market
since I don’t have a clear signal.(Of
course that statement implies this is an accurate indicator.It probably isn’t since short-term market
calls are notoriously bad.) Internals are sometimes helpful in predicting short-term moves,
especially when the internals diverge from the Index.

NTSM

Friday, the overall NTSM analysis remains HOLD
at the close.

MY INVESTED POSITION

I remain about 20% invested in stocks as of 5 March (S&P 500
-1540).The NTSM system sold at
1575 on 16 April.(This is just another
reminder that I should follow the NTSM analysis and not act emotionally – I am
under-performing my own system by about 2%!)I have no problems leaving 20% or 30% invested.If the market is cut in half (worst case) I’d
only lose 10%-15% of my investments.It
also hedges the bet if I am wrong since I will have some invested if the market
goes up.No system is perfect.

Followers

About Me

I am an engineer with a lifelong interest in "playing with numbers" so what could be more fun than trying to develop a system that beats the stock market? Well, lots of things, but I decided to do this anyway.
While I am not a finance-professional, or professional investor, I have developed some skills.
I competed in two CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio contests finishing in the top 4% in 2008 (34,320th of 800,000) and the top 0.1% (448th of 500,000) in 2009. More importantly, I managed to sell out of my retirement accounts at or near the top in 2000 and 2007 and bought close enough to the bottom that I didn’t lose too much sleep. (Even Bill Gates lost SOME sleep.)
I hope that my thoughts will help you achieve your investing goals. Please remember that my ideas are free and there may be times when my ideas are worth less than what you paid.